The Importance of Ground Handling In Airports
Flight planning and servicing have many aspects. While preparing the aircraft, crew and flight plan are the most visible parts, ground handling is also vital for smooth operations. There are many different areas of ground serving and handling to consider and various ways to source these deepening on your operations and locations. Some areas can be resourced internally, while others can be better provided for when outsourced.
When on the ground, some level of external aircraft assistance is usually needed. This will vary depending on the aircraft and the airport. It could just need signaling and marshalling to a stand, or it might require a tow, escort, and jetway handling.
Services such as these are often not noticed – until there is a problem. Strikes or lack of personnel can cause significant delays as many parts of this are essential even to be able to move an aircraft. Looking at the delays and disruption seen in many locations in early 2022 shows this well. Travel resumed quickly, but with ongoing staff shortages. Although this was blamed mainly on airlines, a lack of ground services was a major factor at many airports.
